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Showing posts from January 20, 2009


Book: Indian Temple Sculpture

Indian Temple Sculpture by John Guy looks at Indian temple sculpture in context, as an instrument of worship which embodies powerful religious experience. The book serves as an absorbing introduction to the principal iconographic forms in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism. A major highlight of the book is the pictures and photographs – 150 color and 50 black and white. The photographs are from the famous collection of South-Asian sculpture in London ’s Victoria and Albert Museum . ‘Indian Temple Sculpture’ considers the cosmological meaning hidden in the sculptures, its origins, the temple setting and the role of sculpture within it and reveals the vivid rituals and traditions still in practice today. Kesavan Veluthat reviews the book in The Hindu He treats the subject under six separate chapters. The first chapter deals with how religion evolved in India in such a way as to require icons. A religion based on ritual does not require idols; one based on devotion does.